English 2773
The Journalism of John McPhee
Winter Term 2010

Some writing on McPhee


These are selected from a much more exhaustive list of writing about McPhee that's available on the course Web site. Here, I've included only the ones I've judged to be more considerable, substantial, or scholarly -- and thus worth reading and reporting on. Some items, which the library doesn't own, are available at the Reserve Desk, as originals or photocopies. These are marked with an @ sign at the margin. To locate them, check the library's reserve list for this course to see which are on reserve. Others can be found through the library's periodical collections and online indices.

The Weltzien & Maher book,
Coming Into McPhee Country, which is a collection of articles on McPhee, is on two-hour reserve; any of the articles can probably be read in that time, but I expect most people will take the book out and photocopy one (if you do that, return it quickly, so that if someone else is looking for it she can find it). All the others are on two-day reserve.



@Bailey, Thomas C. "John McPhee: The Making of a Meta-Naturalist."
Earthly Words: Essays on Contemporary American Nature and Environmental Writers. Ed. John Cooley. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994. Pp. 195-213. Described by Deanna Gamble

Berkes, Howard. "A Sense of Where John McPhee Is." National Public Radio Web Site. (24 June 2006). Available on line:
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5508293> Described by Mackenzie Heckbert [Added by Mackenzie Heckbert]


@Bonney, William. "John McPhee's
Coming into the Country: The Frontier as Commodity." Isle: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 1:1 (Spring, 1993), 81 - 95. Described by Darcy Cameron

@Carstarphen, Meta G. "Traveling in Social Spaces: John McPhee's Dichotomies in
Levels of the Game and 'In Search of Marvin Gardens'." In Coming Into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 245-261.

@Chapman, David W. "Forming and Meaning: Writing the Counterpoint Essay."
JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 11:1 (Winter 1991), 73 81. Described by Andréa Peters

Dreifus, Claudia. "A Writer Takes a Turn Reading Sermons in Stone."
New York Times 148: 51344 (17 November 1998): F5. Described by Jessica Holt

Giddens, Elizabeth. "An Epistemic Case Study: Identification and Attitude Change in John McPhee's
Coming into the Country." Rhetoric Review 11:2 (Spring 1993): 378-99. Described by Courtney Fox

@Haynes, Jared. "'The Size and Shape of the Canvas:' An Interview with John McPhee."
Writing on the Edge 5:2 (Spring 1994): 109-25. Repr. (Abridged) in @Coming Into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 54-78. Described by Devika Dadhe

@Howarth, William L." Introducing John McPhee." In
Coming Into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 19-53. Described by Andrew Bartlett

@Howarth, William L." Introduction."
The John McPhee Reader. Ed. William L. Howarth. New York: Random House, 1977. vii-xxiii. Described by Evan Bower
@Humphrey, Theodore C. "'In a Lifetime of Descending Rivers': The Art and Argument of John McPhee's 'River Essays'." In Coming Into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 185-208. Described by Jessica Marr

@Humphrey, Theodore C. "John McPhee's Spiritual Journeys: The Authenticating Eye." In Kristi Siegel, ed. and intro.,
Issues in Travel Writing: Empire, Spectacle, and Displacement. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. 165-78. Described by Garrett Derrah

@Lounsberry, Barbara. "John McPhee's Levels of the Earth." In
The Art of Fact: Contemporary Artists of Nonfiction. New York: Greenwood, 1990. 65-106

@Lounsberry, Barbara. "Pieces and the Frame: McPhee and Portraiture." In
Coming Into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 79-104. Described by Emma Smith

@Maher, Susan Naramore. "Deep Time, Human Time, and the Western Quest: John McPhee's Rising from the Plains."
South Dakota Review 30:1 (Spring, 1992), 36-45.

@Maher, Susan Naramore. "'Pentimento in the Hide': Cracking Code with John McPhee." In
Coming Into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 301-319. Described by Kayla Lawrence

Moore, Leslie S. "The Architectonics of the Personal Essay."
English Journal 81:6 (October 1992): 18-25. Described by Allyson Gorham

@Pearson, Michael. "In the American Grain: John McPhee's
Coming Into the Country." In Coming Into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 145-161.

@Pearson, Michael.
John McPhee. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1997.

Pearson, Michael. "Profile: John McPhee."
Creative Nonfiction 1:1 (1993), 76-87.
@Philippon, Daniel J. "'Academic Air': Teaching
The Control of Nature." In Coming into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 282-300.

@Remnick, David. "Introduction."
The Second John McPhee Reader. Ed. Patricia Strachan and David Remnick. New York: The Noonday Press / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996. vii-xvii.Described by Kevin Williams


@Roundy, Jack. "Crafting Fact: Formal Devices in the Prose of John McPhee." Literary Nonfiction: Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy, ed Chris Anderson. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1989. 70-92.

@Sims, Norman. "'Essence of Writer': John McPhee's Early Training." In
Coming into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 105-119. Described by Acey Outerbridge

@Smith, Kathy. "John McPhee Balances the Act." In
Coming into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 262-281. Described by Joanne Goodall

@Stevens, Barbara. "John McPhee's Annals of the Former World: Geology, Culture, and a Fountain of Metaphor." In
Coming into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 226-241.

Stull, James. "Self and the Performance of Others: The Pastoral Vision of John McPhee."
North Dakota Quarterly 59:3 (Summer 1991), 182-200. Described by Joline Gaudet

Terrie, Philip G. "River of Paradox: John McPhee's 'The Encircled River'."
Western American Literature 23:1 (May 1988), 3-15.. Described by Katelyn Mokler

Tilden, Norma. "Stratigraphies: Writing a Suspect Terrain."
Biography 25:1 (Winter 2000), 25-45. Described by Katelyn Clews

@Turner, Brian. "Giving Good Reasons: Environmental Appeals in the Nonfiction of John McPhee."
Rhetoric Review 13:1 (Fall 1994):164-82. Repr. in Coming Into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 162-184. Described by Brittany Douthwright​

@Van Noy, Rick. "A Plate Tectonics of Language: Geology as Vernacular Science." In
Coming into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 209-225.

@Vicondoa, Brenda. "All Over the Road with John McPhee." In Stephen Tchudi, ed. and intro.
Western Technological Landscapes. Reno, NV: Nevada Humanities Committee, 1998. 73-86. Described by Jody McIntyre

Vipond, Douglas, and Russell A. Hunt. "The Strange Case of the Queen-Post Truss: John McPhee on Writing and Reading."
College Composition and Communication 42:2 (May 1991): 200-10. Described by Shannon Billings

Weber, Ronald. "Letting Subjects Grow." In
The Literature of Fact: Literary Nonfiction in American Writing. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1980. 111-122. Described by Adam Hodnett & Alex Nowicki (Forgot to claim it when I got borrowed it from the library)

@Weltzien, O. Alan. "John McPhee and the Question of Environmental Advocacy." In
Coming into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Ed. O. Alan Weltzien and Susan N. Maher. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003. 123-144. Described by Amy Lawson



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